Volunteer Park is our newest working & playing park! - Part 1

 With so much light in the morning we're trying out a new park.  It's Volunteer Park which is a 10 minute drive from our house.  I really love this park but, up until now it was too much environmental pressure for Viva.  I brought her to this park back in January and she had a hard time seeing so many dogs and people.  But, we've done a lot of work in the last four months with seeing and being around people and we continue to work on alternative behaviors when seeing dogs. 

With it be light so early, that has cut down on the amount of people and dogs around.  When you have a reactive dog (or fearful or general stressed out dog) timing is everything.   So with the environmental set up adjusted we gave it a try. 

Pretty sunrise over the Asian Art Museum 

By the time we make it over to the museum, the sun is up and there's lots to see!

LOTS of flowers in bloom

Love the scalloped tulips.

Double tulips

  

Viva taking in the environment.

Lots of bird and squirrels are out and about

Viva has her eye on all the trees off in the distance.

"I think I need to get after those squirrels"

I've done a lot of premack work with Viva around seeing squirrels and it's worked out well.  Here is a past post talking about premack - Viva and critters

After doing a wonderful job of waiting (yes Viva knows that cue) I tell her to go get her chase on.

We did chase a squirrel which was lots of fun! 

Then we cam back to the museum area.

Viva says "I love chasing squirrels!"

The highest reinforcer for Viva is getting after a squirrels. 

I will be using that reinforcer at this park since the place is full of squirrels.

Here's a past post talking about reinforcers

I'm not sure who is loving this park visit more - me or Viva!

Of we go!

The Asian Art museum is a beautiful building.

More pretty flowers

Viva striking a pose

The park has really nice sightlines

Time to explore more of the park!

Given how well Viva did on our first visit, we came back 4 straight days!  Stay tuned to see the series post of our visits.  We have a great time, lots of park is covered and we see so many pretty flowers in bloom.